[2][3] It is native to Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, but is cultivated worldwide, mostly in the tropics as a perennial, but sometimes in temperate climates as an annual.

[4] Eryngium foetidum is widely used in seasoning, marinating and garnishing in the Caribbean (particularly in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad and Tobago), as well as El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica, Guyana, Suriname, Ecuador, Colombia and in Brazil's and Peru's Amazon regions.

[7] Eryngium foetidum has been used in traditional medicine in tropical regions for burns, earache, fevers, hypertension, constipation, fits, asthma, stomachache, worms, infertility complications, snake bites, diarrhea, and malaria.

[14] It is used as an ethnomedicinal plant for the treatment of a number of ailments such as chills, vomiting, burns, fevers, hypertension, headache, earache, stomachache, asthma, arthritis, snake bites, scorpion stings, diarrhea, malaria and epilepsy.

[medical citation needed] A pharmacological investigation claims to have demonstrated anthelmintic, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anticonvulsant, anticlastogenic, anticarcinogenic, antidiabetic, and antibacterial activity.